Dancing in the Darkness (8 page)

B
efore signing a major-label record deal, we did what we wanted, taking our cue from Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler: ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.’ But guided by the sensible A&R staff at Warners, we somehow found ourselves under-doing things. It didn’t help that Dan and Ed adopted a jobsworth mentality curiously at odds with performing in a cock-rock outfit. If only they’d remembered that old adage, ‘You should never forget where you come from’ – in our case, eggs hatched from a spaceship that had been sexually assaulted by a pterodactyl.
*

Sadly, but inevitably, our sense of fun became inversely proportional to the amount we got paid. It’s uncanny how that happens, no matter how much you enjoy your vocation: it somehow turns into a ‘chore’ when you’re on the payroll.

The most ingenious creative ideas arrive unexpectedly in bunches of three, just like triplets. We knew that we desperately wanted to arrive at the Brits 2004 in a combine harvester. Harvest festivals and music award ceremonies are both steeped in national pride, with rosettes for the biggest vegetables, so it seemed pretty apt. But we also fancied a bit of Jack and the Beanstalk tossed in, allowing Justin to scale said stalk for a fairytale finale. Thirdly, a sprinkling of
The Wizard Of Oz
would allow the four of us uncanny caricatures: Justin as Dorothy, Dan as the scared Lion, myself as the Tin Man and Ed as the Scarecrow. It would be a collage of three disparate themes, if you like.

Noel Gallagher inadvertently inspired all this malarkey with a slagging off: ‘The Darkness, weird fucking cunts! Show us what you can do without a 20-foot fucking vegetable waving around behind you.’ He was getting us mixed up with The Flaming Lips, of course, but, we thought, why not turn his words into a self-fulfilling prophecy? It was a nice idea: four weird cunts and a 20-foot fucking vegetable – or in our case, an 80-foot fucking beanstalk.

As it turned out, costs, logistics and corporate
music industry politics got in the way and we ended up downsizing with an aquatic Neptune theme instead. To the delight of our record company and management, we succeeded in being wet, unoriginal and cost efficient.

It was frustrating when the best ideas weren’t pursued. We had lots of best ideas. ‘Gulliver I Shrunk The Thunderdrome’ became the working brief for our proposed ‘Love Is A Feeling’ video, after I suggested a storyline that incorporated
Gulliver’s Travels, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
and
Mad Max:Beyond Thunderdome
. (Another threesome.) We planned to film it in between dates on the
Big Day Out
tour in Australia. It would involve The Darkness spaceship, shrunken to the dimensions of a toy, crash-landing on a suburban lawn in the middle of an Aussie barbecue before being terrorised by a giant kangaroo.

The record company, however, insisted on us doing a clichéd Guns N’ Roses homage specifically geared towards the American market – all manicured poses atop a cliff as helicopters buzzed overhead. My Scottish side found it especially excruciating to watch the results of this vainglorious exercise – all that waste! It was like watching expensive paint dry. Of course, Atlantic Records were more than happy to lavish funds on
un
imaginative 
ideas. Memo to busy rock bands: never relinquish creative control to your A&R man.

In the event, the single was not even released in the States and the video only succeeded in making the British public think we’d become
self-righteous
wankers way too big for our snakeskin boots – we’d started doing things ‘properly’, and being a ‘proper’ cock-rock band just meant you were a proper cock.

But the best unfulfilled idea was ‘The Arse de Triomphe’, what you might call our French ‘Stonehenge’. (If you don’t get it, try a DVD of
Spinal Tap
.) This stage plan would involve the band making an entrance through a giant plastic female posterior. The buttocks would literally part for us to emerge. What could be better than a massive fibreglass lady’s bottom that opens? But yet again a great idea somehow lost its initial impetus and never saw the light of day. Miserly management and sensible record company execs were slowly strangling the life out of us. And somehow we had gone from being OTT glam-metal pranksters to being ‘yes men’ who underdid what we did and overdid what we didn’t do.

N
obody remembers me now, but in Scotland I used to be as famous as a pope in Rome. In 2003, for example, I was backstage at the Glasgow Barrowlands being interviewed by
The Daily Record
. I had finally got somewhere in spite of myself –
The List
magazine had me at number two in the ‘Hot Scots’ of 2003. I heard afterwards that one of the guys in Primal Scream had nominated me as a joke and the judges had taken him seriously. I never did find out which member of the band it was, but if I ever do I’d like to put his photo in my wallet.

And yet now that I actually
was
someone, I forever felt like an impostor. That’s been a recurring paradox throughout my life, as has opening my mouth without thinking…

In the midst of the touring mayhem, I tried my best to live this interview down – being in The Darkness was, in a sense, all about embracing
embarrassment. In the grand scheme of things, a supposedly ‘embarrassing’ interview was a trifling sideshow; it was best just to move on.

Several months later, I received an email response from the father in question, still living on the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean. I had already heard that he’d forced my brother off the island and bankrupted The Dolphin Inn. Now that he’d ‘come across the article’ (shouldn’t the FBI just google Bin Laden to find out what he’s up to?) it’s fair to say he
was
disappointed in me, but I couldn’t help sensing a dash of fatherly pride in his email. While not professing to like the music itself – coming from a classical background, he looked down on all pop music, particularly The Beatles (‘terrible musicians’), only making an exception for Bob Marley (‘holy prophet’) – he did appear to be genuinely pleased for me. Moreover, since I’d last slammed the phone down on him five years earlier, he’d provided me with two more brothers, Jason and Rupert, courtesy of a 23-year-old native islander. My dad was nearly 70.

The fact is, I didn’t have a problem with the renegade pirate side of him; in fact, I quite admired it. But what really got me in that email of his was the way he tried to justify what had happened
between him and Chris in The Dolphin Inn on St Vincent, way back in 1992. There are some things in life it’s impossible to justify. And one of them is getting in touch with your sons when it suits you, and then fucking them over when it doesn’t. So I ignored the email.

Now that there’d been a resolution to the episode, I didn’t feel as embarrassed about the article any more. Some people use spiritual advisers, meditation or self-help books (like this one) to learn who they really are and what they think. My advice is to get pissed with a journalist – then you’ll find the ultimate truth about yourself. Nobody will believe it anyway, because the truth is the hardest thing to believe. ‘Ye couldnae make it up!’ as they say in Aberdeen when a spoon falls off the table.

T
hey say that women use sex to get affection and men use affection to get sex. There may well be some truth in that, but the trouble with analysing stuff too much is you’ll end up forever chicken-and-egg-ing. Take me for example: I’m nursing a hangover addiction because I think hangovers are more enjoyable than being drunk. Therefore, you could say I’m like a woman using sex to get affection, because the drinking for me has always been a means to an end, and the end is quite simply to achieve a hangover.

On the road with the band, we’d waste our money in silly ways – we’d have masseurs hanging around with no one to massage, throw endless sushi in the bin and suffer stylists’ attempts to transform us (the style-less) into them (the stylish). At one stage, I could have sworn we each had our own ‘liquid stylist’, accompanying us to each party and telling us what to drink and when: ‘Beer and wine fine, wine and beer oh dear. Brandy makes you randy.’ And so on. I hated to see all that waste, and yet strangely I found myself relishing the next day’s hangover. Slowly but surely, an addiction set in.

When I was hungover, my various neuroses seemed to melt away. I felt able to ease into the day without the jarring intrusion of reality. There wasn’t so much thinking involved, for a start, and that felt quite cathartic. Of course, now that I’ve got a red nose, my memory’s shot to bits and I have to wake up and empty the bladder three times a night, I may as well admit that drinking and hangovers were simply a relief from boredom.

Most of us who live comfortably in the Western world suffer from what I would call a ‘jeopardy deficit’ – namely, a distinct lack of danger in our lives. And, of course, we use drink and drugs as a substitute. But without that real-life-enhancing adrenalin buzz, it’s easy to feel like we’re helplessly marooned on a plateau.

I wanted to start a business with my brother Chris in Venezuela: ‘ADVENTURE HOLIDAYS FOR SUICIDE SEEKERS: “BORED WITH LIFE? WE’LL HELP YOU END IT IN A
SPECTACULAR WAY!”’ Of course, nobody would consider suicide after taking a course like ours. That’s why, if you get depressed or suicidal, you should try climbing a mountain – it’s the one thing guaranteed to give you a buzz and get you off the plateau.

We all know champagne can do that too, but as a means to an end it’s overrated – as I’ll explain. Champagne is all about taking off and landing – just like the private jets, egos and chart positions that a rock star’s life consists of. And just like the drink itself, all those landings become a drag after a while. People such as Blur’s Alex James make too much of a fuss about champagne, just because it pops and it’s fizzy and golden. Big deal. Rice Krispies do exactly the same.

Finally, if you’re not sure what the hell I’m going on about, please don’t panic. All will be explained in the next two chapters: ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ed’s Liver’, and ‘Cod Philosophy And Chips – (I Am Therefore I’m Not)’.